Captain Edwin C. Walker

Captain Edwin C. Walker, second son of Kingsbury and Elizabeth (Brown) Walker, is a native of Buffalo, the date of his birth being March 14, 1859.

After attending Public Schools Nos. 8 and 6, our subject chose as his life occupation a seafaring career, in which it will be noted he has been most successful, becoming as well, the virtual successor of his father. The Captain, when fifteen years of age, began firing and decking on the tug Ed. R. Vanburen, which was owned by his father and which he remained for two seasons. The two succeeding seasons he worked in the same capacity on the Troy. In 1878 he went on the lakes on the propeller Passaic as second cook, and he remained on her four months at the end of that time shipping on the government supply boat Haze, finishing the season on her as second cook. The following season he remained ashore, fishing, etc., and in 1880 he built the two tugs Jessie P. Logie and John H. Westcott, which he sold, and also ran an engine on the Oscar Folsom, which was engaged in towing for the Cable Company between Tonawanda and Lockport. The next season he and his father built the tug Sam Darling, and ran her until the first of September, when she was taken through the Erie Canal to New York and sold to the government. During the winter of the same year, he built the Sam N. Sloan, and he ran her engines for the five seasons of 1882-83-84-85-86. He then sold his interest in the Sloan, and was master all of the next season of the tug George D. Gillison. In 1888 he built the David B. Hill, of which he was both master and owner for that and the following season, at the close of which he sold her and built the tug Albany, of which he has been master and owner the past seven years or so, up to the present writing.

In 1882 Captain Walker was married to Mary Schuster, of Buffalo, N. Y., and three children have blessed their union, namely: Elizabeth C., now (1898) aged fourteen years; Leroy N., twelve, and Edwin C., Jr., eight. The family resides at No. 46 Myrtle avenue, Buffalo, N. Y. Captain Walker is a membe rof the Buffalo Harbor Tug Pilots Association.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.